They had the curious tattooing on their cheeks, noses and foreheads, so that their appearance was repellent. Besides this, their teeth were black, their noses large and flat, and their mouths wider than there was any necessity for. Their heads were bare, 192 and, indeed, were furnished by nature with all the covering they could need. The hair was very long, but frizzly, so that as it curled up about their ears and crowns, it formed an immense bushy screen, which gave their heads prodigious size. Their hands and feet were very large, and it would have been hard, in short, to discover anything in their looks that could attract a person toward them. Surveying them dispassionately, one could not help suspecting they belonged to a tribe of cannibals.
However, Inez did not show any repulsion which she might have felt, but stepping close to the proa took the extended hand, and sprang lightly aboard of the strange craft. The natives immediately withdrew, leaving the young captain, as he appeared to be, to conduct the fair visitor around the “ship,” whose dimensions did not require much time to investigate.
Fred explained that the proa was a vessel peculiar to the Indian and Central Pacific oceans, and that it could sail with great swiftness, going either forward or backward with equal readiness. It is a favorite boat used for inter-communication between hundreds of the islands of the South Seas, and the Malays employ them in a different form for their piratical expeditions. They owe their swiftness mainly to the fact that they stand so high out of the water, are very narrow, and present such a large surface to the wind.
“They are good for short voyages,” said Fred, “but I shouldn’t want to start for New York or Liverpool in one of them.”
“How long will it take us to reach the island from which you came?” asked Inez.
“If we start early to-morrow morning, with a good wind, we ought to be there at the end of two days.”
This was shorter time than he had given Mate Storms, but he was now striving to speak the truth.
“And suppose we are overtaken by one of those terrible tempests which sometimes visit this part of the world?”
“We cannot escape the risk, no matter where we are. The storm that would sink a proa might cause a seventy-four to founder, and the only way you can shun danger is to stay here all your life. I hardly think that such is your wish, Miss Inez.”